Siding Project

So my wife and I decided to do the siding and windows on our house. The project went along very smoothly.

we started in october and I finsished the major work before thanksgiving. I finished almost all of the siding before christmas. Fortunatly for me PA had a warm early winter.

I had to stop after christmas because it just got too cold to work with the vinyl.

Of course just as it got warm I was working on the sound of music and didn't have time to finish the project. But I made some real good progress this weekend. I only haave one small area of siding to finish then some incedental fnish work. Fortunalty I will have the 4th of july week off so what I don't get finished by then should get completed that week.

Let's hope I get the project done before my "vacation".

You have new Picture Mail!

Finished another phase of the siding

BC Graduation

8:30 AM From the picture I posted yesterday you can see that my little sister graduated from Boston College. She has done an amazing job finishing her degree in 6 years while working a full time job.

I can't say this would be the easiest or most fun way to finish school. But I am amazed she was able to do. I know I wouldn't have been able to keep a job and attend classes as well.

So there has been a lot of press about the graduation speaker (Condolezza Rice). I will have to say she gave one of the best graduation speeches I have listened to. She spoke well, which could be expected, and she did a very good job of challenging the graduates as "educated people".

The controversy came, it seems, mostly from the faculty who were upset with BC bestowing an honorary degree on her. Apparently a few faculty members were so opposed to the degree they resigned from their tenured positions. I can respect those faculty members. Obviously their feelings were strong enough that they felt they couldn't support BC any longer.

11:45 PM I don't agree with the faculty who "protested" by making and handing out signs. Then attending the ceremony and standing with their backs toward the stage. If they felt so strongly about this topic I believe they should have chose not to attend rather than disrupt the ceremony. Now of course they weren't loud or anything, it just didn't seems like the right venue for a political statement. The morning is supposed to be about the students, not politics.

I suppose the only good thing about them attending is perhaps they listened to the speech and learned something. Condoleza gave a very good graduation speech. One of the best I have heard.

You have new Picture Mail!

My little sister is graduating from BC today!

The Show Must Go On?

Well we lost power last night and learned a few things. First the auditorium that we put our show up in has no emergency lighting, which seem like a bad idea and is probably illegal. Second, not matter how many updates you give to people, and not matter how little control you have over events, as the person in charge people assume you know what is going on and people want you to fix it (fortunately I'm not in charge). And Finally, of course the old theater line "The Show Must Go On!" well it doesn't apply when the owners of the building deem it unsafe and kick you out. But rather than put on a show, or go home and sulk, or watch Survivor, a few of us decided a good alternative would be to go out and have a few adult beverages and lament over our troubles. It is always therapeutic to get together as a group and forget about your troubles. Well it is a lovely day today so far. Lets hope is stays that way and lets hope we have power for tonight's performance. We are on our way to setting an attendance record for the show and we don't' want to blow it.

Update Virginia

Well I just got to VA. I have a presentation tomorrow. After the meeting I have to head back to Philly for rehearsal. We have to practice pushing the house around for a few hours. It would be a bad thing to forget what we are doing Thursday night.

So I have posted a few pictures of the set we built, but perhaps I should describe it.

We ended up building an 8'x18' 2 story rolling set. The front half acts as the Von Trapp living room and the rear acts as maria's bed room. The living room looks rather impressive when it is all together. In addition to the 2 story piece we have dubbed "The Monster" (unoriginal I know) there is a rotating 8'x12' platform that acts as the living room and the outside terrace.

Finally there are 2 door platforms that bring the set from one side of the 40' stage to the other. What amazes me is we can get the whole living room set up in under 2 minutes and there is no mechanical assistance being used.

I think I would be blown away if I had shown up at this show without knowing the set design. In college I had a reputation for building large complex stationary sets this is definitely the largest mobile set I have worked on.

Sound of Music Picture

Pictures from tonights performance. Best seats in a theater.

The hills are alive

Well the sound of music opened last night. We had about 170 people in the audience which is great for an opening night.

there were a few mishaps (the set ran over my foot) but all in all the show went well.

We have 2 shows today, which will really test everyone stamina.

Blogging from a Treo

Well I am going to try and do this from my Treo. I think these text messages have to be pretty short though.

Lets give this a try

Well, I will see how this goes. I'm not sure I have enough discipline to actually keep this up for a while. I am hoping that I get used to posting here. Of course you are reading about a guy who would forget to put his watch on in the morning if it isn't right next to his car keys. So lets see how it goes.